Mining In Chile

The mining sector in Chile has historically been and continues to be one of the pillars of the Chilean economy. Mining in Chile is concentrated in 14 mining districts, all of them in the northern half of the country and in particular in the Norte Grande region spanning most of the Atacama Desert.

Chile was, in 2024, the world's largest producer of copper,Copper production in 2024 by USGS
/ref> iodine and rhenium, the second largest producer of lithium, the third largest producer of molybdenum, the seventh largest producer of silver, and salt, the eighth largest producer of potash, the thirteenth producer of sulfur and the fourteenth producer of iron ore in the world. In the production of gold, between 2006 and 2017, the country produced annual quantities ranging from 35.9 tons in 2017 to 51.3 tons in 2013.

In 2021 mining taxes stood for 19% of the Chilean state's incomes. Mining stood for about 14% of gross domestic product (GDP) but by estimates including economic activity linked to mining it stood for 20% of GDP. About 3% of Chile's workforce work in mines and quarries but in a wider sense about 10% of the country's employment is linked to mining.

Historically, coal mining had some importance in the southern half of country from the 1850s to the 1990sExplotacion Reservas
Comisión Naciona de Energía. Accessed on September 10. 2012. with a brief revival in Invierno mine from 2013 to 2020. In the 19th century Chile was a major producer of silver (1830s to 1850s) and copper (1850s to 1870s). From 1870 to the 1930 nitrate mining was an important employment and income source for Chile. Modern copper mining in Chile begun in the 1900s and 1910s with the arrival of companies from the United States which were fully nationalized by 1971 under the state-owned copper company Codelco.

The governance of mining in Chile is done by non-overlapping bodies; COCHILCO, ENAMI, the National Geology and Mining Service (SERNAGEOMIN) and the Ministry of Mining. SONAMI and Consejo Minero are guilds associations grouping corporate mining interests in Chile.

Copper

Chile is the world's largest producer of copper and has been so uninterruptedly since 1983. This activity provides a substantial part of the Chilean state's revenue: slightly less than 6% in 2020, with state-owned copper company Codelco alone generating 2.6% of state revenue.

Mining of copper in Chile is done chiefly on giant low-grade porphyry copper deposits. As of 2023 the most productive copper mine is Escondida owned by BHP, Rio Tinto and two other private companies and located in inland Antofagasta Region.

Part of the state's income from copper mining goes to the Economic and Social Stabilization Fund which is since 207 the successor to the Copper Stabilization Fund established in 1987. This fund allows for more precise annual government budget planning given that copper prices can exhibit strong fluctuations.

Lithium

Northern Chile forms part of the Lithium Triangle with substantial reserves in the form of brine. The explosive growth in electric vehicles since 2015 has triggered increased demand.

Chile is the main producer of lithium from brine.Cabello, J. (2022)
Reserves, resources and lithium exploration in the salt flats of northern Chile
''Andean Geology''. 49 (2): 297–306. doi
10.5027/andgeoV49n2-3444
Retrieved July 2, 2022. Until 2017, when it was surpassed by Australia, Chile was the over-all main producer of lithium. Estimates show that Chile is expected to be surpassed also by Argentina and China in lithium production by 2030. Lithium-expert Gustavo Lagos suggests that lithium production in Chile will by 2030 represent be about 8% of the world's total production. Chile has the world's cheapest production costs for lithium and this could be an advantage for mining in Chile once recycled lithium enters the market competing with costly mining operations in the future.

Most of Chile's lithium reserves are in Salar de Atacama and Salar de Maricunga, and all lithium extracted in Chile as of 2023 comes from Salar de Atacama. The only two lithium-extracting companies currently operating in Chile, SQM and Albemarle, have licences to extract lithium until 2030 and 2043 respectively. In April 2023 Chilean government announced plans for nationalizing its lithium industry. The state-owned copper company Codelco was commissioned by the government to negotiate nationalization with SQM.

Gold

The amount of gold mined in Chile has fluctuated in the 2010–2023 period from a high of 50.852 kg in 2013 to a low of 30,907 kg in 2022. Also in the same period 36% to 72% of the gold produced annually in Chile was a by-product of copper mining. The share of medium and small-scale mining in gold production in Chile has dropped from an average of 45% for the 2003–2005 period to 9% in 2023.

Most of the economically viable gold deposits in Chile belong to two types of deposits; high-sulfidation epithermal and porphyry type. Most of these deposits formed in the last 66 millions years (Cenozoic) in connection to magmatic activity in the Andes. Gold from iron oxide copper gold ore deposits (IOCG), from mesothermal deposits, or of Mesozoic age (formed 66 to 252 million years ago) may in some cases be recurrent geological features but lack often large concentrations to make them profitable. Almost all valuable non-placer gold in Chile occur in the northern half of the country and some deposits are grouped into belts like the Maricunga Gold Belt and El Indio Gold Belt.

Almost no mining of placer gold occurs today. The placer deposits of some areas of difficult access in Patagonia are subject to sporadic small-scale illegal gold mining. A 2019 study found that seven of Chile's ten best placer gold prospects lie around Cordillera de Nahuelbuta.

Iron

250px, Train moving iron ore in the industrial area of Los Colorados mine.
Since at least 2010 Chile's has each year produced 0.6% to 0.7% of all iron mined in the world. Production has risen from 6.8 million metric tonnes in 2010 to more than 10 million metric tonnes each year beginning 2021. Mining of iron ore deposits along the Chilean Iron Belt have been facilitated by their proximity to the ports of export at the coast, and this had in particular had an impact for the economic viability of small iron ore deposits. Compañía Minera del Pacífico (CMP) is largest iron mining company in Chile. Is through its parent company Compañía de Acero del Pacífico (CAP) a member of Consejo Minero, a guild of large mining companies in the country. Compañia Minera del Pacífico has three main mines each with its own port for export. Near Copiapó the company owns Cerro Negro Norte mine which uses the port of Punta Totoralillo, further south the company is in ownership of Los Colorados mine which uses the port of Guacolda II, and near the city of La Serena El Romeral mine is operated using the port of Guayacán in Coquimbo.

In medium-scale iron mining in Chile the mines and deposits of El Carmen, Huantemé, Cerro Imán and El Dorado are important.

The Dominga project led by Andes Iron seeks to establish a new iron and copper mine near the coast of northern Coquimbo Region. This project has proved controversial for political and environmental reasons.

Iodine and nitrate

In the Atacama Desert in northern Chile there are vast superficial deposits of caliche, a mixture of gypsum, sodium chloride and other salts, and sand. It is associated to the mineral nitratine also known as "Chile saltpeter" (Spanish: ''salitre''). The deposits contain an average of 7.5% sodium nitrate, as well as sodium sulfate (18.87%), sodium chloride (4.8%), and smaller amounts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, borate, iodine, and perchlorate. About two-thirds of the deposits are insoluble gangue minerals. The caliche beds are from 2 cm to several meters thick in alluvial deposits, where the soluble minerals form a cement in unconsolidated regolith. Nitrate-bearing caliche is also found permeating bedrock to form bedrock deposits.

Nitratine is a composite of sodium nitrate (NaNO₃) and potassium nitrate (KNO₃). Nitratine was an important source of export revenue for Chile until World War I, when Europe began to produce both nitrates industrially in large quantities. Mining nitrate in the Far North of Chile was arguably the main economic activity of the country from 1880 to 1930.

Caliche is the main iodine ore in Chile and the country is the world's prime producer of this element in addition to hosting over half of the worlds reserves of iodine.USGS Iodine Production Statistics
/ref> SQM is Chile's main iodine producer. Iodine at SQM is extracted from caliche ore but requires also sulphur, ammonium nitrate, sulfuric acid, kerosene, water, electricity and fossil fuel, mainly diesel. SQM is Chile's main iodine producer. Iodine at SQM is extracted from caliche ore but requires also sulphur, ammonium nitrate, sulfuric acid, kerosene, water, electricity and fossil fuel, mainly diesel.

Other minerals

Since the late 1970s, the production of gold and silver has increased greatly. The lead, iron and petroleum industries have shrunk since the mid-1970s, the result of both adverse international market conditions and declines in the availability of some of these resources. With a combined total value of about US$4 billion, two of the largest investments planned in Chile in the early 1990s were designated for an aluminium smelters projects in the Puerto Aisén and Strait of Magellan areas.

In the 2005–2024 period more than half of the silver produced annually in Chile was a by-product of copper mining.

There is no primary mining of cobalt in Chile with the last activity ending in 1944. Cobalt resources are known from the Chilean Iron Belt near the coast of Coquimbo and Atacama regions and in the site of El Volcán in Cajón del Maipo in the Andes near Santiago. Cobalt is a potential by-product of iron and copper mining along the iron belt.

There is no manganese mining in Chile since 2009 when Empresa Manganeso Atacama ceased operations. Until then about half of the Chilean manganese had been exported to Argentina, and mining was mainly done in underground mines. Historically Corral Quemado and other areas of Coquimbo Region have produced most manganese in Chile. Manganese mining in Chile and Corral Quemado had a strong peak in 1943 when it came to produce more of what was being purchased leading to large stockpiles accumulating in ports and railway stations and ultimately to a halt in mining and thus mass unemployment. Transport costs have been a comparative disadvantage for the commercialization of manganese mined in Chile. The area around Taltal was second to Corral Quemado in importance in manganese mining in the 1940s. Known manganese deposits are scattered along the length of Chile from Arica (18.5° S) to Valdivia (39.5° S). In detail the known manganese deposits concentrate in three areas; the Altiplano in northernmost Chile, the Coquimbo and Atacama regions and the metasedimentary rocks of the provinces of Cautín and Valdivia.

Medium-scale mining

Most medium-scale mining is concentrated near roads or other pre-existing infrastructure, and lie thus away from the high Andes where nearly all mines belong to the large-scale mining category. The mining districts of Chañaral, Copiapó, Huasco and Andacollo have most of their mining done by medium-scale mining companies. The state-owned enterprise ENAMI has among its goals supporting medium-scale mining. Medium-scale mining has a larger share of mining properties in the country as whole, and in Atacama Region in particular, relative to large-scale mining that is dominant in the regions of Tarapacá and Antofagasta.

Medium-scale mining in Chile tends to focus on copper and produced about 4.5% of the copper mined in the country from 2017 to 2021. In that period the copper extracted by medium-scale mining increased each year starting from 256 kt in 2017 ato 313 kt in 2021. Besides copper other medium-scale mining activity in Chile involve gold, iron, zinc and lead. The amount and share of the gold mined by small and medium scale mining in Chile has declined significantly from 2003 to 2023. In iron mining El Carmen mine near Chañaral is a leading medium-scale producer. According to figures from 2013 all zinc and lead mining in Chile was done by medium and small-scale miners.

Most mineral exploration efforts by medium-scale mining are done near established mines (brownfield exploration), and as of 2023 about three quartes of these exploration projects are for copper and the remaining for gold.

Small-scale mining

As with medium-scale mining, small scale mining concentrates in lowlands and the lower elevations of the Andes, usually near roads or other relevant infrastructure. The number of artisan miners in Chile, often known as ''pirquineros'', has varied widely over the years. Since 2000 in some years with high metal prices have had up to c. 14,000 small-scale miners active. On average 95% of small-scale miners work in copper mining. These miners are supported by ENAMI which processes copper ore it purchases at stabilized prices. The levels of illegal mining in Chile are low relative to neighbouring countries.

See also

* Geology of Chile
* Law on Mining Concessions

References

Bibliography

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External links

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Chile's mining industry, Amcham Chile
in 2006

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mining In Chile

Lithium mines by country